Not just for the birds
"Her name is Rosie", the old man that was camped near us with Florida license plates told me as his dog walked over to me. Rosie, was an overweight black lab with gray on her face and eyes clouded over with glaucoma. "Come on Rosie, don't bother her," he yelled in her direction. I yelled …
After the light came We got an early start and headed up the mountain in the dark wearing headlamps for the first part of the climb. After about an hour of zigzagging up the mountain the sun started to rise in the distance. Some parts of the climb were super steep and I ended up …
Celebrating and reminiscing about great days on the chukar hills from past seasons. These beautiful moments, funny ones, exhausting ones, and even frustrating ones always remind us of the beauty of the sport and what the culture of chukar hunting means to all of us. The following is a collection of some photos we've never …
On the steep ascent the winds were blowing hard and the dogs were having a hard time pinpointing the birds and singles were busting wild from the grasses and the minute you blinked one would take off like a missile. Halfway up the ridge, I stopped on top of a rocky outcropping to wait for …
Some things are rituals. It was never discussed on Saturday but over the course of the last four months it was customary or tradition that we'd bird hunt on every Sunday. Last Sunday morning while sitting in front of the wood stove drinking coffee and looking out the living room window toward the mountains, Bob …
Bob and I stood there at the bottom of the mountain for a couple of minutes looking up the steep ridge and up to a rocky outcropping high up on the ridgetop. We scanned the terrain for obvious paths made by animals. These paths usually prove to be the easier route up to the place …
I live for this moment. This sequence. My dogs look like they're onto birds. I sense it from subtle nuances and have learned from training and experience how to read their body language. If I'm hunting with just one dog all my focus is on that one dog. If both of my dogs are in …
A big part of the appeal of chukar hunting for most of us is the beautiful places where these wild birds live. These captivating and lonely places are hard to get to, and they challenge us mentally and physically, but they continue to seduce us to them year after year. We daydream about the solitude …
According to our blog stats, we get hundreds of hits and searches for chukar and upland bird recipes every month. I have no excuse, but we haven't posted a new recipe on here for a while; it's been about five years to be exact. Thanks to Peat, Angus, Bob, and on good days when I …
Most of the snow lay clean and unmarked. We could tell nobody had hunted this spot since this first big snowstorm of the season, three days before. We were jacked. It was cold outside and early in the day, the pine trees, bushes, and grasses were frilled with snow, it was magical and beautiful. Hunting …